WCC Bonn: Aronian's take and impressions

10/19/2008 – Sunday, a free day at the World Championship in Bonn, Germany – and our chess expert, Levon Aronian, was stuck without Internet access at the European Club Cup in Kallithea, Greece. Today, in an heroic effort, he managed to send us his assessments of games three and four as SMS messages. We bring you the Super GM's take on the game, Europe Echecs videos and new pictures from Bonn.

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World
Chess Championship in Bonn

The World Chess Championship is taking place from October 14 – November
02, 2008 in the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in
Bonn. The match consists of twelve games, played under classical time controls:
120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then
15 minutes for the rest of the game plus an additional 30 seconds per move starting
from move 61. The prize fund is 1.5 million Euro (approximately 2.35 million
US Dollars) including taxes and FIDE license fees, and is split equally between
the players.

The games are being broadcast live by FoidosChess,
with video and commentary for €10 per game; and on Playchess.com.
Details are given at the end of this report..

Levon Aronian: My take on the games

GM Levon Aronian, number seven in the world, analysing with ChessBase editors

Game three

How long will this feast continue? Today we had a very tasty dish, filled with
new ideas and very sharp play. Surprisingly it was Anand who came up with an
interesting novelty in the Slav Defence – Kramnik's bread and butter!
I have no doubt that Kramnik knows how to play in that line, just remembering
such a sheer amount of variations is tremendously taxing. In the game it seemed
that the sacrifice he made would lead the game to a calm haven, but Anand found
a brilliant way to continue the play, and gained the upper hand. Kramnik could
have produced more resistance, however he crumbled under the pressure –
and we saw the first scalp of the match.

Is there more to come, or will our magnificent chefs will cook something simple?

Videos and pictures from the press conference

Game four

Once again we have a fascinating encounter! Afrter a very popular opening –
at least for World Championship matches – it seemed for a moment at least
that Anand had managed to keep the game from drying up. At that very moment
Kramnik came up with yet another remarkable (in this match) defensive idea!
His kingside pawns lift was a new word in this kind of position, and it worked
well to maintain equilibrium. A very instructive game.

Picture Gallery

Vladimir Kramnik in a pensive mood after the unexpected loss in game three

Anand explains what happened during this exciting game...

... and enjoys an exchange with a GM colleague from France

Kramnik lightens up in the course of the press conference (see Europe Echecs
video above)

World Champion Viswanathan Anand, the winner in round three

Later that night four well-known chess experts discuss the game

Georgios Makropoulos, Deputy President of FIDE and Supervisor of the Organisation
Committee

Prof. Dr. Robert K. Freiherr von Weizsäcker, President of the
German Chess Federation
and of the Organisation Committee

Nigel Freeman, FIDE Delegate from Bermuda, member of the Appeals Committee

Israel Gelfer, Israel, Honorary Vice President of FIDE, member
of the Appeals Committee

The French corner: Bachar Kouatly, Lebanese–French grandmaster, editor
of
Europe Echecs; and Igor Nataf, one of the most entertaining GMs of our aquaintance

Ashok Alexander, Director of the Indian section of the Bill and Melinda Gates
foundation

Ashok is an avid chess amateur, who is keen on increasing his 2235 FIDE rating
to 2300 or even, some day, to IM strength, and is taking lessons from Igor Nataf
("the world's greatest chess teacher") to achieve this aim. He has
know Anand since the days when he played next to the Indian superstar, who at
the time was around eleven years old.

All photos by Frederic Friedel in Bonn

Live broadcast

The games are being broadcast live by FoidosChess,
which provides five parallel video streams to present the players and commentary
by grandmasters in German, English, Spanish and Russian. The cost is €10
per game. The games are also being broadcast live on Playchess.com
(without videos and commentary, but also without time delay).

If you are not a member you can download ChessBase
Light, which gives you immediate access to Playchess. Owners of
Fritz
11 or Rybka
3 automatically get a full year's subscription to Playchess.

You can also use all these programs to read, replay and analyse the
PGN games.

See also

12/30/2017 – The "King Salman World Blitz & Rapid Championships 2017" in Riyadh from Decemer 26th to 30th. At the half way point of the Blitz Championship, the defending champ Sergey Karjakin leads with 9 / 11. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is a half point back followed by Peter Svidler and a trio of Chinese: Wang, Ding and Yu on 8 / 11. In the Women's Pia Cramling has a full point lead with 9½ / 11. Watch live with Rounds 11 to 22 from 12:00 Noon CET (6:00 AM EST) on Saturday with commentary by E. Miroshnichenko & WGM K. Tsatsalashvili.

See also

12/6/2017 – Imagine this: you tell a computer system how the pieces move — nothing more. Then you tell it to learn to play the game. And a day later — yes, just 24 hours — it has figured it out to the level that beats the strongest programs in the world convincingly! DeepMind, the company that recently created the strongest Go program in the world, turned its attention to chess, and came up with this spectacular result.

Video

The introductory position of the Kasparov Gambit can occur after 1 d4,1 Nf3 and 1 c4, which can appeal to a wide range of players. The usual move order is 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 Nf3 cxd4 4 Nxd4 e5!? 5 Nb5 d5 6 cxd5 Bc5 bringing us to a very sharp position. On this 60 mins, FIDE Senior Trainer Andrew Martin argues the case from the Black side, showing both classic Kasparov masterpieces and games from the present day and suggests that White's defensive task is not easy. This is a practical gambit which will help players at all levels to win more games. It is ideal for must-win situations with Black. It is a gambit that White cannot decline,as if he does, Black gets a good position instantly. White must take up the cudgels and fight!